


Objectives

by unwindmyself



Series: curious shapes shift in the dark [45]
Category: True Blood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, Female Friendship, Fix-It, Gen, Reconnaissance, Vampire Family, agency and choices!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 18:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1753669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwindmyself/pseuds/unwindmyself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nora and Willa's undercover-as-schoolgirls mission (and Nora playing cool aunt as usual).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Objectives

**Author's Note:**

> Part three, "Biting Down."

Nora parks the car in a garage and grumbles as she turns the car off; in response to that, Willa offers, “If you really aren’t into it, I can drive us home.”

Not that she’s super great at driving, but she _can_ , at least, and she’s not as averse to it as her aunt, who in turn isn’t a bad driver – a little reckless, perhaps, and prone to speeding, but that makes sense, all things considered – but still. (Late adapter, Eric kept calling her, which seems funny given that she’s better with and fonder of proper tech than him by far, but they’re all contradictions in terms really.)

“Maybe,” Nora replies. “I don’t know. We’ll see.” It depends on her mood and that will depend how successful they are tonight. After a moment, she casts an appraising glance at the younger girl, says very bluntly, “This will be so much simpler when you’re old enough to fly.”

Willa’s eyes light up really and truly (it’s a welcome sight after all of last night’s – admittedly understandable – gloom) as she asks, “When’s that gonna be?” Since it’s not relevant yet, this is one of the parts of basic vampire 411 that hasn’t been covered yet, and she can’t help but inquire.

A shrug. “Varies,” Nora says, pulling down the mirror to check her hair. “It’s never been proven, but I suspect that one’s bloodline may lead to an inclination toward gaining the ability sooner, too.”

“And ours inclines?” Willa presses, all hopeful.

“Yes,” Nora confirms. But that’s enough of that for now, so she turns to look her niece straight on. “Now, the goal tonight is to get the word on the street as pertains to Billith, but we can’t just go around asking directly, hence…” She nods to their outfits.

“I think your name should be Allison and mine should be Stacy,” Willa interrupts. “And you’re my cousin and we got lost trying to find…”

“Cousin from out of town, I take it?” Nora asks with a smirk.

“Maybe,” Willa says. “Or we could both be from out of town? I took acting classes in school, I could totally be British.”

That last is said in an attempt at the appropriate accent, and it’s not horrible (Nora’s heard _much_ worse) but it might not be the thing. Instead she points out, letting her own accent shift to match Willa’s natural one, “A couple Brits might be too obvious. We could both be from around here, though.”

“ _Nice!_ ” Willa exclaims. “Was acting stuff part of your Authority… training, I guess would be the word?” That would make sense, she thinks.

“Not technically,” Nora says, gone back to her natural accent for the moment. “I mean, they never had courses for us, but you pick things up. And I figure if I speak twelve languages fluently, I can manage to figure out how to speak this one a little differently.”

“That makes sense,” Willa nods. “Gosh, that must have been really neat, even just having a reason to _need_ to speak twelve languages. Teach me someday?”

Nora shrugs, smiling in spite of herself at Willa’s enthusiasm. It’s really very sweet, she thinks, though she knows that she’d be easily put off by the wide-eyed innocent act in most situations (she figures it’s a family thing that’s making Willa endearing, or maybe it’s a little that it reminds her of how she was as a baby, all eager to learn everything and know everything). “Someday,” she agrees. “For now, we’ve work to do.”

With that, the women step out of the car, Willa tugging on her skirt and Nora dropping the keys in her little purse (another of the items borrowed from Jessica – she doesn’t usually carry one if she can help it, but it suits right now).

“Look more curious,” Willa whispers, low enough that nobody but Nora has any chance of hearing. “Kinda little girl lost, maybe.”

Nora’s eyebrow goes up, but she figures she may as well play the part, so as she looks around she pushes her glasses up on her nose and then lets herself play with her necklace, which all things considered actually goes fairly well with the outfit. For her part Willa, who’s decided to play drama coach apparently, nods approvingly.

“Hey, Allison,” Willa says loudly after a few minutes of walking, when she starts to hear the sounds of vampires killing and drinking (makes sense, they’re in the neighborhood of what’s now reduced to Billith’s lair). “Maybe it was around this corner?”

 _It_ , the fictional destination they’ve misplaced. “Maybe,” Nora says, also loudly and back to that Southern twang, all “Ah” where there’s an “I” and the like. “I could’ve sworn it was close to here. I wish my phone hadn’t died.”

“Hey, at least you’ve still got yours at all,” Willa chuckles. “I’m so pissed mine broke.”

And that, a clue to the fact that they’re as alone and vulnerable and without connections. They’re setting themselves up as the bait in a horror movie.

They round the corner and Willa’s actually twirling the end of her braid between her fingers as she says, “Hey, Allison, maybe we could ask these guys.”

It’s three vampires they’re approaching, a man and a woman sharing a victim as another burlier man presumably keeps watch, and they notice that the two predators push said victim back instantly, both of them immediately smiling like the Big Bad Wolf. They look young, which is perfect – they’ll be easier to manage.

“Okay, Stacy,” Nora agrees, grinning brightly. She rocks on the balls of her feet, which is maybe a little more preadolescent than teenage but oh, well. “Excuse me?”

“Can we help you?” the larger man asks, surreptitiously wiping blood off of his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Yeah,” Nora chirps. “We were kinda looking for a club?”

“What club is that, sweetheart?” the other man asks. Of course _sweetheart_ , of course patronizing. It’s not hard to imagine him in a fedora and strumming an acoustic guitar. (If Billith is trying to build an army of newborns, he’s not exactly picking likely subjects. But then, maybe the likelier ones choose these others.)

“We forgot the name,” Willa mumbles all sheepishly. “It was, uh… it was a vampire club. Underground, kinda?”

“Don’t you know playing with vampires is dangerous?” the woman drawls.

“But they’re so cool,” Willa enthuses. “I mean, they’re scary, but I just wanna see for myself, and my cousin, she’s visiting…”

“From Georgia,” Nora cuts in, still grinning. Naïve humans love to offer random facts about themselves, don’t they?

“And we heard there was some cool place around here,” Willa finishes.

“Well, it’s not a club, exactly, there’s not _dancing_ ,” the woman muses, “but I bet we could take you to meet some real vampires if you were curious.”

With that, the three strangers all drop fang, and Nora and Willa fake surprise. “Oh my god,” Nora whispers, reaching for her necklace again.

“The boss is gonna love these two,” one of the men whispers to the other. “Naïve is always more fun.”

“The boss?” Willa repeats.

“Let’s be real,” the smaller man says. “Cute little things like you make the best virgin sacrifices for an all-powerful god.”

But the woman’s furrowing her brow, staring at Willa’s face. “Wait,” she says. “I think I’ve seen this one before. On the news.”

“You’re the governor’s daughter,” one of the men exclaims.

Willa and Nora exchange glances. “Well, guess that means we’re just going to get to it,” Nora sighs, pulling her glasses off and stuffing them in her purse. “You take the little one, I’ll take the big one?”

“That sounds like a plan,” Willa agrees, and within seconds Nora’s equipped them both with stakes and they’ve killed the two male vampires, leaving the woman standing there shocked and perplexed.

“You,” Nora says, sliding back into her proper accent, “you we have a few questions for.”


End file.
